A Completely Different Normal

The way we view everything in life is altered by our own perspective.  Even though I have spent more of my life in a wheelchair and on a ventilator than I spent able-bodied, I still see my current condition as an altered state.  For example, when I am dreaming at night, I am able to breathe, walk, and move like I did before my spinal cord injury, even when those dreams include people I met as a direct result of my accident.

I have three nephews: Wickliffe (9), Nicholas (7), and Porter (5).  They have only ever known me to be in a wheelchair.  For them it is a part of their reality and is completely normal.  In many ways, they have adapted to how they interact with me much better than other people, because they do not perceive my condition as something out of the ordinary.  When Nicholas was little, Wickliffe showed him a picture of me and explained to him that it was a picture of Loa before she was in her wheelchair.  While they are aware of the fact that I have not always been in a wheelchair, they accept my condition so simply.

Rocking a faux hawk to match my nephews' Mohawks

Throughout their lives, all three of my nephews have exhibited uncanny insight when it comes to understanding how to interact with me.  Not only do they feed me, climb into my bed to play with me, and fight over who gets to ride on my lap, they truly see my circumstances as a normal part of their everyday life.  When visiting a new park for the first time, Wickliffe told my parents it was a perfect park for me to play at with him because it had a ramp that I would be able to use to navigate the play structure. 

They do not perceive my condition as something out of the ordinary.

On another occasion, I was singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider with Porter when he reached under my blanket to move my fingers like a climbing spider.  The fact that a twenty month old child felt compelled to help me participate in our game had a profound impact on helping me see the amazing perspective of these little boys.  To them it is not weird, nor the consequence of a tragic accident that I cannot move; it is just something that they help me navigate without a second thought.  So while I continue to regard myself as altered from my natural state by my accident, my nephews, with the unbiased minds of children, just see their aunt, accepting all the parts of me however they come.